In the Twilight of the Christian West: A Theology of Mourning and Resistance

The alarming rise of the Christian right’s politics finds root in a theology of power focused on sovereign force and national destiny “revealed” through divine providence.In an era of resurgent far-right authoritarianism cloaked in the rhetoric of preserving Western civilization, comes a groundbreaking work by Mac Loftin that reveals how white Christian nationalism’s political imagination is shaped by a theology of power within Christianity itself.Countering this malignant theology with the vision of 20th century antifascist thinkers, Loftin reveals the ways theologians, mystics, and revolutionaries met their own fraught political moments by forging potent theological resistance through the recovery of an altogether different tradition in Christian theology – one that embraces impermanence, reconciliation, difference, and the liberative work of mourning.From Christian theologians like Henri de Lubac and Karl Barth, to Jewish writers like Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, to the religiously ambivalent like Simone Weil and W.E.B. Du Bois, antifascist writers understood the political crisis consuming the West as a crisis within Christian theology. For too long, they argued, the loudest voices in theology have spoken of God as a sovereign master whose infinite might can save us from transience and loss―a worship of power finding political expression in the far right. To ground a politics of resistance, these writers dove deep into the history of Christian theology. They recovered forgotten theological voices and imagined new forms of theology. Against the theology of power, they wrote mystical texts, prayers, meditations on the cross, theological treatises, and new liturgies in which they described a God who renounces mastery and a faith that embraces impermanence and difference. It was through those who gave the most pointed accusations of fascism’s Christian roots that one of the most daring and creative visions of Christian life and thought came to meet the challenge of the moment.Guiding readers to dive deep into their own traditions and practices, Loftin uncovers powerful tools for Christian resistance in troubling times. Read more